Kobayashi Maru - Michael A. Martin [15]
Knowing that the Frislen could detect her scent even more strongly than before, TPol sprinted forward into the darkness, barely able to see the tunnels around her. She sensed movement behind her, but dared not whirl around to face her pursuers. The only thing she knew for certain was that the farther into the caves she got, the closer she would come to their nest.
The floor abruptly gave way in front of her, and she pitched forward, falling into a shallow fissure or ravineor a trapand she felt the creatures leap on her the next moment, their hands pummeling her over and over again, their nails slashing at her. She struggled against their powerful limbs, but after an indefinable length of time allowed herself to go limp. She focused her conscious mind inward, ready to wake up fully with the speed of a charging le-matya from behind her meditative shield against both mortal terror and physical pain.
They carried her with them instead of dragging her, and she was grateful for that, even as she continued to focus herself on what was to come. Eventually, she heard screams she could identify as coming from Vekkr, but as they came closer, the wailing subsided into guttural cries and moans. She hoped silently that if she should survive the mission, she would be able to find the strength to deliver a painless death to any of her comrades who had become infected.
She remained limp as a rag doll as her captors unceremoniously dumped her against something hard, allowing her to land in a semiseated position. Vekkr was mostly silent now, though in her meditative state, TPol could hear several of the other sounds that were reverberating through the dark, rocky chamber. Within her mind, she withdrew, as if she were a hungry, ravening Underlier waiting to strike from below the baking sands of Vulcans Forge.
A rough hand grabbed her face, its jagged fingernails digging into her chin. TPol allowed herself to come back to full consciousness, but willed herself not to tense up into a defensive posture that the creatures might notice. She opened her eyes, however, and found herself staring into the ravaged face of what appeared to be a female humanoid.
Her features were vaguely similar to those of Vulcans, but her eyes were more prominent and seemed to have multiple lids, nictitating from the sides as well as from top to bottom. The womans ears tapered to graceful points at their tips, but everything else about her external pinnae struck TPol as less than aesthetically pleasing; they were flattened backward, were roughly the same size as the womans entire face, and were covered in bulging greenish veins.
In a movement that might have been a smile had she had lips, the Frislen woman allowed her mouth to tilt upward on the sides as she noticed TPol studying her. Four rows of rotted teethwhich included sharpened, predatory incisorsfilled her oral cavity.
“You will be mine, I think, the woman said, speaking in a perfect Vulcan Standard dialect.
TPol was less interested in what the statement meant than she was in keeping the woman talking. As naturally and fearfully as she couldshe didnt really have to feign the trembling that had overtaken hershe peered around the woman into the dimness of the cavern beyond. She saw three more of the Frislen, as well as the remains of Yekda, and the body of Vekkr, on top of which lay a fifth Frislen, who was moving languidly, almost as if in a drunken state.
“What are you planning to do with us? TPol asked, hearing the quaver in her own voice.
“You will be mine, the woman said again. “That one belongs now to Gromstl, she said, gesturing toward the creature atop Vekkr. “The others, she added, sweeping a clawed hand toward a grate in the floor that apparently covered a prisonlike pit, “will be food. Or fun. Or they will belong, too.
TPol understood that the womans emphasis on the word “belong meant that she intended to infect